Publication Ethics

To ensure high-quality scientific publications

The key building block in the development of journals is the consistent and respected dissemination of knowledge through publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal. Henceforth, it is important to agree upon the ethical behavior of all the individuals involved in publication i.e. the author, the editor, the referee as well as the publisher. Therefore, to ensure high-quality scientific publications, ethical standards for publication have been founded.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

Author’s Responsibilities

Authors play a vital role in the development of the scientific community. All the authors should follow standard guidelines laid for them to produce a quality and novel work to be published. These guidelines includes:

Authorship: For any person to qualify as an author he/she must be able to meet the criteria laid by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). This criterion is applicable not only to the authors of the medical field but also to all other disciplines. Authorship credits are ought to be based on extensive contributions in designing, analysis, or execution, and data interpretation, writing an article, revising the article significantly, examining and approving the final version.

Originality: An author is expected to present the account of work in a genuine manner along with the significance. The authors are expected to present original works, and an appropriate citation should be made on citing the works of others

Plagiarism: Authors should not engage in plagiarizing another person’s intellectual or self-plagiarizing their own previously published work without properly citing them.

Duplicate Submission: Authors should submit a manuscript to only one journal at a time. It is unethical to submit a manuscript with similar principal research to more than one journal at a time.

Duplicate Publication: Authors must not submit a manuscript with similar principal research to that of an article which has already been published by themselves or others.

Funding Sources: Any financial or personal interest that governs the findings or research in the manuscript, along with the details of financial support and its sources, should be revealed.

Reproducing Previous Figures: Authors should seek permission from the relevant publishers while reproducing figures or schematic presentations from previous publications.

Reviewers Responsibilities

The reputation of a journal and the significance of any reviewed publication primarily depends on the quality of the peer review process. However, most of the times reviewers accept their job without any assistance and may not be aware of their ethical obligations. All the peer reviewers should follow the standard guidelines laid for effective evaluation of manuscripts. These guidelines includes:

Confidentiality: Reviewer comments should be held confidentially by the reviewers. After the commencement of review process the reviewers should not retain the manuscript.

Constructive Evaluation: Decisions and judgment should be constructive that provides legible insight to author without any controversy or inefficiencies with the review process.

Competence: A reviewer should agree to review the manuscripts only in which he/she have an adequate ability in carrying out a proper evaluation else, they must decline to review.

Impartiality and Integrity: Reviewer decision should solely depend on scientific merit, relevance to the subject, the scope of the journal rather on financial, racial, ethnic origin etc. of the authors.

Timeliness and Responsiveness: Reviewer must be responsible for completing the review within the relevant time and should take all necessary steps to fulfill the limitations of the journal.

Editor Responsibilities

Publication decisions: The decision to publish an article submitted to the Journals of Onjourn Publishers is taken by the editorial board. The editor must stick to the contemporary regulations pertaining to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism that are effective. He/She is entitled to carry out decision-making in consultation with reviewers or members of the editorial board.

Fair play: An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality: The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.